Dr Jacquie Tran
for WOMBAT 2022
07 Dec 2022
More data than we
know what to do with!
[Note: Women’s results not available]
jac@jacquietran.com
@jacquietran@mastodon.social
Kia ora!
The landscape
01
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
86,174
T20 Cricket World Cup Final
[Mar 2020]
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
87,192
Euros Final
[Jul 2022]
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
42,579 (sold out!)
Rugby World Cup
[Jul 2022]
Increased coverage
(from a very low base!)
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
Increased coverage
(from a very low base!)
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
Improved funding
(also from a very low base!)
27.5% revenue share
$65k avg. base salary for
domestic players (WBBL & WNCL)
Increased coverage
(from a very low base!)
Record crowds
Cricket, football, rugby…
Improved funding
(also from a very low base!)
AFLW season 6
$20,239 –$37,155
AFLW season 7
$39,184 –$71,935
Gaps in performance
data for women’s sport
An example…
Richard Little
Data Scientist
Victorian Institute of Sport
{bounceR}
https://github.com/alittlefitness/bounceR
An example…
Men’s ODIs
1,436 matches
from 1975 to 2022
Hawkeye data for
822 matches (57%)
An example…
Women’s ODIs
391 matches
from 2009 to 2022
Hawkeye data for
23 matches (6%)
Representation in research
5,000+ papers from 6 sport
science journals (2014-2020)
63% of papers include male and
female participants
31% males only
6% females only
Across all papers:
66% male, 34% female
https://doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.2021-0028
Types of gaps
Comprehensiveness Accuracy and rigour Resourcing
Why does
it matter?
02
Sports data is
sports history.
At the time of writing, Kerr
had scored 257 professional
goals across her career.
From archived matches, old
online and TV news reports,
social media:
“…we managed to find and
document 238 Sam Kerr goals.
We weren’t able to find
footage for the other 19.”
Sue Bird
(for the Players’ Tribune, 2016)
“When Steph Curry is close to achieving a new record, you
know about it within 30 shots. Media leads with the story.
Fans are talking about it in real time —
in their homes, at bars, at games, online.
But when Elena (Delle Donne) makes history, there’s almost
none of that echo throughout the sports landscape.”
Grow knowledge,
lift performance.
Advocacy based on facts.
“Via [his lawyers], De Bruyne
commissioned Analytics FC to
produce a report analysing the
player's past, present and
projected future performances
and importance to the team - as
well as benchmarking his salary
against those of other world-
leading attacking midfielders.”
(Austin, 2021)
Fan experience and engagement.
https://probabilistic-footy.monash.edu/~footy/
Gathering quality data
shows respect.
Changing
the game
03
Basketball
{wnblr}
WNBL and Tauihi Aotearoa
https://github.com/jacquietran/wnblr
{wehoop}
Women’s college basketball and WNBA
https://github.com/sportsdataverse/wehoop/
Football / Soccer
{worldfootballR}
Club and national stats around the world,
for men’s and women’s competitions
https://github.com/JaseZiv/worldfootballR
{StatsBombR}
Includes free data releases for men’s and
women’s tournaments
https://github.com/statsbomb/StatsBombR
Australian Football
{fitzRoy}
Stats from men’s and women’s AFL
competitions
https://github.com/jimmyday12/fitzRoy
Cricket
{cricketdata}
International cricket, men’s and womens.
https://github.com/robjhyndman/cricketdata
Where to
next?
04
Developer contributions
Data journalism
Ways to support
Use available data
Data package development, log issues,
write docs, check data quality!
ABC, Siren Sport, The Athletic, + more!
Teaching, research, social media
Dr Jacquie Tran
for WOMBAT 2022
07 Dec 2022
More data than we
know what to do with!
[Note: Women’s results not available]
jac@jacquietran.com
@jacquietran@mastodon.social
